"So, there's no box. You'll need to put it together, but there is no list of approved hardware, so knowing which components (TV tuner card, telephone interface products for Asterisk, supported cellphones, remote controls, IR emitter to control your TV/video/stereo, home autmation control interface) will work well is going to be a trial-and-error process."

I know you guys don't develop mythtv and the other programs and stuff, but could you make a webpage of approved and working hardware with links to such pages from the developer's website? Perhaps a section in the wiki? So everything could be centralized? Something like: list of supported remotes, tv tuners, phones working out of the box (plug and play). It would be very appreciated.Thanks in advance.

Im alot more concerned with computable home automation gear. trying to avoid x10, anyone know of any other lighting controls/camera systems that are compatible with LinuxMCE?

You want to avoid your lights coming on in the middle of the night, other lights that only come on when your oven is on and a 10% hardware fail out of the box with X10? Geeeze, picky eh? *grin* I seem to remember there being some mention of Z-track lighting or some such in the video. I've seen compatible HA and camera stuff somewhere around here, but you'll have to search for it... I can't seem to find what I saw.

For lighting you can use z-wave devices. I have several of them in my home and you can mix up different manufacturer products. For example I have 3 Intermatic homesettings lamp modules, 1 intermatic homesettings appliance module, 1 HomePro dimmable 3-way switch, and 1 Visia RF relay switch. All controlled using a homepro USB interface connected to PlutoHome. Yes I use PlutoHome, but I am looking closely at LinuxMCE as a more "open" alternative.